20-year-old sets self afire, walks into ex-school in Ashok Nagar

CHENNAI: After quarrelling with his mother over his inability to find a job to support himself and the family, a 20-year-old youth who dropped out of college set himself on fire and walked into a government school in Ashok Nagar where he studied.

The incident happened on Wednesday night and he died inside the school premises itself, said the police adding that the officials managed to identify the youth as A Chandru, a few hours later.

According to the police, there is a Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) hostel near the school. It was the students who were in the hostel who saw a man on fire walking into the school, the police said.

Based on their alert, the Ashok Nagar police recovered the body and sent it for postmortem late Wednesday night.

During their investigations, the officials found that Chandru had completed his Class 12 at the same school where he was found dead. The police said after dropping out of college, Chandru remained unemployed, which caused frequent quarrels between him and his mother.

After one such argument on Wednesday night, the youth went to the school around 10.30 pm, immolated himself and walked into the school premises where he died. Further investigations are on.